Health and green groups call for universal PFAS restriction

A partnership of health and wildlife groups has called for urgent measures to address PFAS pollution, including alignment with the EU’s universal PFAS restriction.

The report, Regulating PFAS ‘forever chemicals’ in the UK – a way forward, has been produced by CHEM Trust, Fidra, Marine Conservation Society, Wildlife and Countryside Link and Breast Cancer UK. It said: “Despite the evidence and the increasing availability of safer alternatives, UK PFAS regulations lag behind the EU’s. While the EU has already banned PFAS use in various sectors and is progressing with a universal PFAS (uPFAS) restriction covering over 10,000 PFAS in a wide range of sectors, the UK has yet to ban a single PFAS since leaving the EU. The UK’s Regulatory Management Option Analysis (RMOA) is also significantly narrower in scope than the EU’s uPFAS restriction.

“Substance-by-substance and small group approaches are inadequate and insufficient. A comprehensive group-wide restriction on PFAS is the only effective and pragmatic way forward.”

The report said the UK should:  

• Urgently commit to aligning with the EU's universal PFAS restriction. 

• In the interim, introduce targeted sector-specific bans, drawing on successful models already implemented in Denmark and France. 

The coalition said: “We have had nearly a century of research into the properties and behaviour of PFAS. Now is the time for action. To safeguard human health, prevent further environmental damage and avoid escalating economic costs, the UK must act decisively.”

The launch coincided with the publication of new analysis of Environment Agency data by WCL and The Rivers Trust, which revealed an increase in PFAS pollution in rivers across England in the last two years. The findings included:

• 94% of English rivers where forever chemicals have been tested for in combination (110 out of 117 sites in the last six years) would fail proposed new EU safety standards for PFAS in surface water. This is up from 77% in February 2023.

• 85% of these river sites where PFAS combinations were found exceed proposed EU safety levels by at least five times the recommended limit, with 47% at ten times or more the proposed threshold.